Submarine
by leeleepupu
Summary: It is the year 2008 and Draco Malfoy has been living a life of exile in the muggle world with his daughter. His life drastically changes when he finds a distraught Hermione Granger on his front porch one afternoon. Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to J.K. ROWLING. Only the plot is mine.
1. Chapter 1

**Present Day 2008**

Draco wipes the wet plates clean and puts them in their stand. He takes his gloves off and places a glass of milk for her while Athena hums some tune she heard on the telly the other day. She has a pleasant voice and Draco wonders if he should send his mother another video. She always cheered up his mother. Well, who couldn't find themselves cheered up by her presence?

"Can we go to the movies tonight?" Athena asks, her eyes widening in an effort to manipulate her father to bend to her will. She is quite the Slytherin. Draco cannot help but smirk at the thought.

"Finish your milk," Draco says sternly, throwing a glare over his shoulder for good measure. He can hear her pout and groan but the sound of milk being chugged down soon follows and he smiles to himself. He puts his plate on the table and sits down to eat, silently waiting for Athena to begin with her questions.

"Papa, why doesn't the colour of my skin match yours?" she asks, as she always does. Draco opens his mouth to give out the same perfunctory reply he always makes when asked this question but she interrupts him, "don't give me the fairy tale version of it. I'm a big girl, I can handle it," she sits up straight and her clear brown eyes peer into his grey ones. Draco purses his lips. Unlike other times when Athena could be cajoled with other versions, this time there seems to be a dangerous passion around her. She looks like she won't be satisfied with half-truths. And Draco has made his life on half-truths, survived a war on half-truths.

"Athena," he says quietly but shuts up. He doesn't know what to say to her and how to say it. "Can we please wait till the weekend? I'll tell you then."

"No, I want to know _now_," Athena shouts. "Everybody in school is the same colour as their parents, and also, where is my mom? I want a mom too!" Athena cries, her lips pressing into a thin line. Draco can see she is on the verge of tears and his heart clenches.

"Do you not like your skin?" he asks, instead.

"I want to be like you."

He wants to tell her _No_, no, no. She shouldn't ever, ever want to be like him. His daughter is pure and he is not. He wants her to be nothing like him.

"I want to look like you and grandma," she crosses her pudgy arms across her chest. He wants to tell her something that would matter, something that would make sense. But he can't so he just stares at her tiredly until Athena finally stops glaring. She seems to sense her father's helplessness and Draco is surprised when she hugs him.

"So I guess we'll be going to the movies tonight?" She says, smirking slightly. Draco is incredulous and proud of his little Slytherin child.

* * *

**Year 2000**

When Azkaban allows one Draco Malfoy back into society, it is not the society of his choice, and definitely not in a situation of his choice. His magic is taken away from him, though is allowed to use owls to send his mother letters and such. Everything else, however, is taken away from him.

His home, his friends, his life, his _magic _–sometimes when Draco is not completely awake and is suspended in the delicious space of lucidity and sleep, he can almost feel his body hum with magic. He can feel it zing in his bones. They can never really divorce him from it and he finds some solace in that. In situations of panic and eventual outburst, Draco founds himself always reaching for his pant pockets only to have his fingers grasp at air. He is frightened and alone. He wants to go home and when his mother calls him her baby, he realizes he is anything but. He decides he has had a good enough childhood and does not deserve more of it; does not deserve to ask to be taken care. He has deprived so many parents of their children; so many children of their childhood. He cannot complain anymore.

He starts reading books on wandless magic though he knows he can only exercise it in small amounts, the tracker the Ministry put on him will be notified if the amount of magic in his vicinity is more than the regulated amount owing to presence of magical objects in his home. Even his clothes from the Manor emitted some magic of their own – for after all, they were not of _this_ world. The Ministry tried to take away this right from Draco too but his mother fought tooth-and-nail for him to at least have the decency to hold magic, if not exercise it.

The owl, the letters, the _books_, and other artefacts Draco has in his house produce a magical field sufficient for Draco to disguise his magic as part of the objects'. He can make objects move wandlessly but it is still a long time before he is able to make them yield to him completely. The first time he succeeds is when he loads the dishwasher and switches it on without any physical effort.

Draco Malfoy has known poverty but not like the one he sees when he arrives in this village. He studies engineering at a nearby city and the commute takes him six hours back and forth. He sees the trees, and the animals, as if for the first time. He sees the people, as if for the first time. Being removed from his family and his manor...Draco Malfoy finally finds a space to be himself. He is not sure of what he is, or who he is. He neither muggle, nor wizard, nor squib. He is human...and wonders if that is enough. Draco Malfoy finds that every day he hates himself a little. He is not sure how this has come along, but he is glad. Most evenings are spent learning how to cook against the sound of his father's old American jazz records crooning through the gramophone.

The first time they found the muggle records, Draco and Narcissa Malfoy had been stunned. Lucius Malfoy's private study had several wards and secret cabinets hidden along the walls - which when broken into revealed a voluminous collection of muggle books and other novelties. The initial shock is followed by with hatred and mistrust. Draco had, upon his father's arrest and eventual death in captivity, come to conclude and understand that his father was bigoted racist sycophant who loved his family very much and because of his unfortunate opinions made decisions that didn't bode him and his family well.

Draco had understood this contradiction that lay in his father. But at this discovery of muggle inventory, Draco is angry and confused and – so, so tired. He does not understand how his father could've brought Draco up the way he had, with the notions he had instilled in him, while pursuing muggle culture in secret. He does not understand, and it is a long time before Draco realizes he does not need to understand his father in order to still be capable of loving him. Draco understands he cannot understand everything or everyone - he cannot even understand himself, for that matter, and with that, Draco finds he also hates his father less; accepts him more, understands him more, and eventually, forgives him.

He initiates a bridge construction project when he finishes his education. The villagers are wary of him initially but soon grow to accept him...if not completely like him.

There is a fire one day and there is only one noise: of a baby. Draco Malfoy finds himself with an orphan and he wonders how he is to love and parent a kid when he knows and remembers none. When the baby clutches at his breast desperately, trying to look for a nipple to suckle at, Draco finds he is confused and angry. Angry for what had happened to the baby – confused, at what the baby wanted. He calls his mother, asks him to visit her. His first mistake. He didn't plan on adopting the baby at all – but there was no one there. No one left. What could he have done? He was so tired of blood and war and death. He wanted life.

But even before Draco Malfoy can wonder if he is a good enough parent, there is an entire court case opened by the Wizengamot to determine it for him. The newspapers are just like he remembers them to be: loud, rude and precise.

_Former Death Eater vying for muggle Fatherhood?_

_Former Death Eater Draco Malfoy a fit parent?_

'_Death Eaters and Diabolical Diapers' - _Special piece by Rita Skeeter

"Don't listen to what they say," he hears someone say from behind him. It's Potter. After an entire fortnight of sleepless nights because the baby, refuses to sleep, Draco is too tired to conjure up a response. He is too tired for anger or for hate. He has been tired of it for a while now, he realizes. He looks at Potter and wonder how this boy – now, a man, managed to get out of the bed every morning after leading the life he had lead. All those years spent in terror – how does he do it? How had he done it before? He wants to ask, unknown to him that Harry Potter wonders the same about him.

"I think, erm – you'll be great, you know," Potter says in that stupid awkward Potter way. Draco remains silent. He doesn't know how to respond to kindness yet. He is still learning. He does not know how to respond to Potter, especially. Stupid, awkward, brave Potter who never really had a normal life and didn't really like the limelight he was placed in now. He remembers Narcissa telling last month of a fight Potter had gotten into with the paparazzi and how he was let "off the hook, way too easily" and it was so "because he is the Golden Boy" and Draco had begrudged him in that moment, begrudges his privileges, his life, had wanted to punch the wall and punch Potter, though even in that moment Draco knew he'd be hung for it, but now that he sees Potter in front of him, living, breathing, he remembers the fights, the crap Potter was put through and Draco feels _relieved_ that he is not Harry Potter. He is not the Boy-Who-Lived and Boy-Who-Was-Forced-To-Save-Everyone – Draco is so, so, relieved because he knows his cowardly heart could not have summed up the courage to rise up to the challenge even if it was prophesied by Merlin himself.

Potter clears his throat and Draco is forced to think about what Potter has just said. He honestly does not know what kind of a parent he would be. What he does know is that he had stopped referring to the baby as 'the baby' and started referring to it as 'my baby.' He had started waking up at the slightest whimper of his daughter. She is a girl, a girl with a pair of strong lungs which she intended to use every time Draco closed his eyes.

"I have a daughter," Draco says softly, marvelling at the fact. Nobody can take it away from him, he realizes. They can call him names but they cannot take away the nights he had spent cooing to his daughter, the afternoons he had spent pressing a wet cloth against the baby's mouth; let her tug at his hair, let her vomit on him. Nobody could take away the fatherhood from him. "I have a daughter," Draco says, firmly now. Potter is looking at him with a strange look. Draco Malfoy looks up and smirks, feeling more like him than he has in a decade.

"I hope these imbeciles give their judgement soon – so, I can appeal it, and re-appeal it again, and again," he says, his back straight, eyes closed, and arms crossed over his chest, "I have a daughter to raise and things to do, after all."

* * *

**Present day 2008**

He has no idea what she is doing here and he wonders if she's thinking the same thing. He wonders if he should ask her if she's lost, if she's okay, if he should contact someone on her behalf but finds himself unable to say anything; finds himself capable of only waiting, like she seems to be doing, for something to happen, to shock them out of their inaction. She takes a deep breath and Draco notices the way her mouth contracts into a small wound before setting into a straight line. He wonders if she's going to say something any time soon. He knows he isn't.

"It's nice here," She finally says. She doesn't look at him and Draco isn't sure if the comment is addressed to him. He nods anyway. Her fingers seem restless and it is the first time Draco notices that she isn't wearing a ring. He had learnt of her impending nuptials in the papers but her naked fingers make him think otherwise now. But maybe she is the kind who didn't believe in rings, so he couldn't be sure what to think. He doesn't know her so he can't comment on the kind of person she is.

She is wearing a grey button-down blouse whose sleeves are rolled up at the elbows; a silver necklace lies against her neck. Her restless hands finger her form fitting blue jeans at her knees before resting in her lap again. Her eyes are vacant save for a glimmer of spark at times. She looks like a shadow of lazy insanity. They don't say anything for another hour. She mostly stares into the space. He stares at her. He wonders if she knew it was a Friday and he didn't work Friday and through the weekends before she came here. He looks at her and wonders if she is capable of any coherent thought at all.

He had found her two hours ago, when he'd come home from grocery shopping, sitting on the front porch of his home. She hadn't said anything when he had expressed his surprise over her presence. She had just looked at him, in a strange scared confused way. He had invited inside to which she had made a vague sound of refusal. He hadn't protested, only taken a seat on the chairs placed out on the porch, a safe distance from where she sat on the stairs.

It has been an hour and a half and Draco decides he must break whatever spell Granger was ensconced in. He has things to do. Unlike wonder girl, his life hasn't been easy and he cannot humour her any longer. He has to go fetch Athena from school first. But he isn't sure if it would be wise to expose his daughter to a dazed Granger. She doesn't seem to be dangerous, just confused. Draco still isn't comfortable with the thought of Athena coming home to a misty-eyed stranger sitting on their doorstep.

"Granger," Draco says, giving her a cautious nudge on the shoulder, "you need to leave. My daughter will be home soon."

In the past two hours, it is the first time Granger moves as if aware of her body and existence, her eyes focus on him and her pupils expand. Her mind seems to slowly register him, and the situation. She closes her eyes, purses her lips and releases a deep breath. She opens her eyes and stands up. Draco somehow feels it took a massive effort to perform all those actions.

"Of course, Athena, right? I've heard of her. Heard she's lovely. I was told she's tiny, and she –," Granger is now muttering unintelligibly. After a few barely coherent sentences, her mutterings become completely incoherent and Draco finds himself standing there awkwardly waiting for Granger to realize that he's waiting for her to leave. It takes another ten minutes before Hermione Granger is all caught up and blushes profusely when the realization dawns on her.

"Can I ...Can I not stay for a little while longer? I promise not to do anything bizarre. I just…," her arms wound around her torso, and her eyes search the floor for words. Draco understands her perfectly. He knows exactly what she wants and he knows he can give it to her. But he doesn't know what it would mean and what it would entail in the future. He doesn't understand why she's _here_. He isn't sure of the commitment, he isn't sure he's the right person for this. He isn't sure if he wants to take up what would definitely grow to be a huge responsibility with Athena around. He isn't sure of one goddamned thing.

"Just another hour?" Granger's eyes are glistening with unshed tears, she is pleading. He still doesn't understand why she's _here_. Why isn't she with Weasely or Potter or her muggle parents, or her muggle friends - if she had any. He doesn't understand why she's come to him. He wonders about her friends, family, her engagement - _what had happened to her?_

He wonders if Granger likes Indian food because that is what he has made for lunch. Athena had declared herself a vegetarian a week ago, and in a supportive gesture Draco now humoured her by cooking vegetarian meals from different cuisines. Fridays is Indian.

"Alright, come on in," he says as he opens the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Who are you?" Athena asks as soon as she enters the house. Granger is sitting on one of the large bamboo woven chairs, with her knees pressed to her chest. She seems startled on being interrupted rudely out of her daze.

Draco glares at Athena sharply. The girl is not subtle. Or polite. He needs to spend more time on teaching her manners, Draco decides.

"I -I," Granger stutters as Athena patiently waits with her large brown eyes for a satisfactory answer. Draco watches the poor girl go through a mild anxiety attack before he helps her.

"She's my friend from school."

"But -," Athena begins when Draco decides to interrupt the stream of questions he knows Athena is bubbling with inside.

"Athena," Draco says sharply, "go and wash up for lunch. I'll introduce you to our guest in a minute."

Athena pouts at her father but runs upstairs to do his bidding. Granger releases an audible sigh of relief. "Sorry, I didn't know what to say," she said sheepishly, her eyes retaining more of the life Draco remembers them to contain from years ago. "Thank you," she adds, shyly. He looks at her but says nothing. He doesn't know what to say.

"Come have lunch," Draco says, as he gestures towards the dining table. Granger's face looks comical as surprise washes over it. She shoots up from her seat and stutters, "Oh, I couldn't possibly impose. I've already done too much damage, I'm afraid. I should, I should leave."

"Nonsense. I've already made lunch for three," Draco says, surprising himself, as he walks over to the dining table and pulls out a chair. He expects Granger to rage any second for not accepting her refusal, for her to shout at him for thinking he had the right to tell her what to do but to his surprise Granger quietly makes a beeline to the seat he's holding out and plops down gracelessly. He hates it. Her...submissiveness.

A minute later there are hurried excited footsteps rushing towards the dining table. "I'm here," Athena announces ceremoniously and Draco smirks. "I can see that," he raises an eyebrow at her flamboyance and waits for her to take her seat as he places the bowl of curry and a plate of bread on the table.

"I'm Athena," she announces again, loudly. Granger, who is not disappearing into her head anymore, finds herself nodding warmly, "I'm Hermione. Your father's friend from school."

"I know. Dad just said," Athena says haughtily. Draco almost rolls his eyes. "But," Athena adds, "Grandma Malfoy said dad doesn't have any female friends except for Aunty Pansy," Athena frowns as she looks at Draco who is now blushing.

"Athena," Draco says in an admonishing tone. He reminds himself to talk to her about good manners. And to his mother about talking too much. Granger seems amused.

"What? It is true. And Grandma Malfoy always tells me that I should say the truth," Athena argues.

"And we'll thank your grandmother the next time she's here to visit us," Draco mutters.

Silence falls and they resume their dinner. Draco knows it's not going to last. At least, Athena predictably breaks the silence by asking,

"Is she coming to the movies with us?"

"No," Draco snaps surprising everyone - even himself. He quickly glances at Granger to see if he has offended her but then looks away. He shouldn't care even if he had, he tells himself. She has intruded onto his perfectlynormal life without permission or precedent. She has no right to do so after spending a life so comfortable in the wizarding world when he has to come up with ruses here to just touch his wand. He is sick of it - of her. He wants her gone. She reminds him of too many things for him to be okay.

Granger hasn't looked up. She is eating her food quietly. He can feel Athena glaring at him but he doesn't look at her. She can -will- guilt him into asking Granger to come to the movies with them. And he does not want to do that. Cannot afford to. It will lead to too many things and mean too many things for Draco to care about at the moment.

"Daddy," Athena says, "Today, Maria pulled Tommy's hair and Tommy cried and Mrs. MacField said Maria's parents will be called tomorrow to school to principal's office."

"Did you do anything while all of this was happening?"

"No."

"And why is that?"

"Because I couldn't care less about Tommy or Tommy's hair. He's kind of mean to everyone. I personally think he had it coming."

Draco finds it difficult to bite back the smirk that is almost threatening to break onto his face. His daughter is too much of a Slytherin for him to be not proud of her. He catches Granger eyeing Athena disapprovingly. Of course, the bleeding heart Gryffindor doesn't approve. Pah! Thinks Draco. But he notices how Granger doesn't say anything for the rest of the meal, and neither does she look up. After dinner, Draco sends Athena up to do her homework.

"I'll be coming upstairs to check," he warns her. Athena only makes a face and retreats upstairs. Draco makes two cups of coffee. He isn't used to drinking coffee after dinner but he doesn't know what to do with Granger any more. She doesn't seem like she is going to be leaving any time soon and the awkward silences are going to give him a migraine. So he makes coffee. It is convention. Muggle convention. He read it. In books. Yes, muggle books.

She is lingering in his living room, studying his furniture. He watches her as she raises her fingers and maps the contours of his furniture. She can feel the magic. She looks up when Draco enters the room.

"Clever," she smiles lightly as she motions to the furniture. Draco smirks and says no more lest he be later dragged into court over this one day. He can say he had never admitted to whatever Granger was allegedly suggesting.

"Your coffee," he says, placing it on the teapoy.

"Thank you," she says without turning. She goes through his book shelf leisurely. She smiles when she sees _Hogwarts: A History_. "I thought I was the only one who still had this ."

"I keep it..for old times sake. But that's it, I guess. I don't have anything else."

They begin talking. About things. But not of people. About the most inane topics to the most important ones. They talk without forgetting themselves or those around them; they talk with their complete consciousness and sobriety and find comfort in their awkward knowledge.

"Are you leaving?" A head peeks out from between the balustrades.

Before leaving, she thanks for him letting her sit on his porch. He shrugs. He cannot make himself tell her he had been, in actuality, afraid of her, for himself and his daughter, when he had spotted. Thoughted the worst of the worst and decided to play as nice as possible. He knew if the Wonder Girl wished his life would be snapped in two in a second. He can't bear to tell her all of this so he just - shrugs. When she leaves, Draco Malfoy realizes, for the first time in years, that he has been lonely for quite some time even for polite talk. He is lonely but afraid of companionship. He sighs.

"Daddy, we must leave at once otherwise we'll miss the movie!" Athena calls out from upstairs. Her voice reminds Draco he has her at least. And that is enough.

But then Granger turns up. Again.

But this time it is not without consciousness. It is with gifts. For Athena and himself. It is awkward -but not really, because Athena is gushing over the books and chocolates Granger has brought for her. She has brought Draco a ...wand _cover. _She explains, later, that it acts like a signal blocker. The Ministry will not be able to track any magic performed by his wand. When he asks whether the Ministry would be happy to know Ms Hermione Granger is arming a former Death Eater with means to perform magic, she says, "Fuck them." Very seriously. In her weird Granger prissy manner. Draco cannot stop laughing for ten whole minutes after that.

"I heard Pansy mention it. Once. About you, about this," Grange says, "She'd said you lived near a river in a village which separates the city and you helped build bridges and you had a daughter - of course, everyone knew that already but it was the way she said it - it was all so wholesome. So happy. Actually, that day, I'd come in not seeking shelter but to - to destroy you. I loathed the fact that your life - even after being stripped of so many things - turned out fine. You had a career, a family, a life and here I was - lonely and - and barely getting by. I was on my way to - to -," She stops, her face clenched in a painful frown as she looks at him, "But then I came here and I realized that it's none of our fault that things turned out the way they did - and I couldn't move and I was just - that was it."

They go to the movies together. It becomes a weekly ritual and Draco doesn't mind it. Much. He wonders why Hermione wants to this - why she acquiesces, why she acquiesced in the first place. He wonders when he started referring to her as 'Hermione'.

"What happened with Weasely?" he asks one day.

"With Ron? Nothing happened with Ron…" Her voice trails away, and her gaze was glazed with memories of years long before things turned out the way they did. It is only darkness. And shadows. Sometimes she wakes up and finds herself to be standing outside in the open dew bruised grass, without slippers, her pyjamas damp against her skin, no recollection of how she got there. The healers at St. Mungos give her heavy medication, sleep potions and numbness potions - she feels like a vegetable, her thoughts slow and dumb.

Ron is going through his own battles. He is as fragile and broken as she. Harry is as happy as happiness can be received. Ron sits with his hands on his face most of the time. They have tried to love with their broken selves but loves bleeds out through their crevices leaving both unfulfilled and hungry. There is not enough for anyone in them.

Ronald Weasley was. He tried to be, tried for the present instead of the past. Sometimes he would be among friends, laughing, and then something would pull him out of there and thrust him into this world of darkness. His dreams were full of blood and screams. He could never leave them behind. There was no past to abandon, the past was never the past. There was nothing to get over, or move on from, he couldn't grasp at his grief to understand it and throw it away. He couldn't grasp at himself. He was not.

They are both too damaged to help each other out. They are both broken in the same places and were angry and passionate and so sad - their grief was like a dead baby hanging between them. They couldn't understand how to move on from the dead - how do the dead move on, and how do the living move on from them. They were tired and short on love and compassion.

Ron knew she couldn't save him, and he couldn't save her. They had saved whoever they could, it was time to sleep. He had been walking down the street, when a kid threw a water balloon. The shock of it all roused to the mind the horrors of the war, the world around him seem to melt into a haze but the laughter of someone brought him back to the present - the clear, sharp present. He wiped the wet hair off his forehead to look up at the person who had laughed.

"You okay, Weasely?" It was a woman. Who knew him apparently. But then he was famous so everybody did know him.. but there was something about the woman that felt she knew more than the bounds of his ostensible life. Her face seemed familiar now, after he had looked at her long enough. Her face reminded him of a …pu-

"Pansy? Pansy Parkinson?" Ron found himself saying and moving towards.

"Who else? The kids got you with that one, yeah?" She was wearing a loose white tank top and blue jeans. She looked so...muggle.

Things between them were strange. She was strange. She was so snarky and sharp, she cut him but it didn't hurt. She was as if a strong crisp wind biting at his blurry blunt world, forcing it to yield to her colour, to her mouth. She was so -

"You should go to St. Mungo's" She had said one day. Ron had just stared at her. He had hoped she didn't notice. Didn't notice the tremor in his hand, his nightmares, his cold sweat, his - well, a lot of his shit. He had hoped she would let him be. But she hadn't.

"I'm not doing this with you, Weasel," she said. "You have to do this on your own."

"I don't care what you think, pug," Ron bit out. She only smiled, though. Softly. Understandably. As if she knew. As if she had known everything he had been through. As if she knew worse and still thought - no, _knew_, that there was a way out of this never ending stillness.

"There you are," she said. As if she had been looking for something in him all this long, and she had only just found it. "Now get the fuck up. I'm not going to baby you, here. You need help and I've already got a job."

"Owl me when you're ready," She said before leaving. Ron remained sitting on the sofa. Absorbing the stillness and the silence that Pansy had planted in her wake. He sighed.

Then went to see George.

He hadn't seen his brother in months. He hadn't seen his family in months. He couldn't bear to see the look of his mother and Ginny when they saw him. They saw something of him he couldn't hide. He couldn't hide from the war before, now he couldn't hide the war. His father would crack muggle jokes and Ron would forget to laugh. But the worst was George.

He would see his brother mourning his other half, his soul mate. Nobody but the family understood George's grief. George was hollowed out, half his body movements had been taken away - half his life. He couldn't understand what to do expect to pour out everything inside him into the joke shop.

"How do you do it, George?" Ron asked, his voice breaking. He clutched his head in hands, frustratedly. "I can't - I can't do it. It's too difficult. How do you do it? How did we even live through that?"

George places a hand on his younger brother's shoulder. "He's always with me, Ron. He hasn't gone anywhere I won't find him again."

Ron pressed the back of his palm against his cheek hastily. "Will -," his voice cracked, "Will you come with me to St. Mungos?" He finally asked. Ron felt George look at him with concern. Then his clear blue eyes wrinkled at the edges. He was smiling.

"About time, brother," he said. Ron gave him a watery smile and took out his wand.

"_Now_?" George asked, surprised.

"Well, then when?"

George considered his brother for a moment before nodding in acquiescence. Ron's expression had been that of when they were younger and he and Fred wouldn't let him play with them. That innocent expression of hurt and surprise. And helplessness. He hated seeing that on his brother as a grown up.

"Okay, let's go. I'll just close the shop up."

"Oh, and there's something else..." Ron said from behind George.

"Hmm?" George asked, busily shutting down the shop.

"I'm kind of seeing Pansy ...Parkinson."

He felt his brother stop all that he was doing and turn to him. "Pansy Pug Parkinson?" George asked, his face devoid of any expression.

Ron nodded nervously. "Well, then we better get you to St. Mungo's soon brother," George snickered.


End file.
